1. Writing my blog - tick. This is going OK, I feel, in that after the first month of not telling anyone the URL, and keeping it all secret, I'm now quite happy for friends, family, colleagues, all and sundry really, to be reading it. I think this is mainly because I know I haven't let slip any great indiscretions on here, plus also I'm not trying to be the next big literary sensation. A few people have said that it's nice to know what Ali and I are up to. A few have agreed with some of my ramblings. Anyway, no nasty comments as yet, and that's because you are all such lovely people.
2. Body Balance - overall, another tick. I do feel better for doing this class every week, but I have let a few weeks slip here and there. Overall I've managed to get to the class more often than not. It's fair to say I will never develop Madonna-style upper arm tonage though. And the music is still shit.
3. Cataloguing the garden and photo-blogging through the seasons. I read quite a few gardening blogs and would love to have been able to snap away through the growing and fading of the plants in our front and back gardens. If I'd been that dedicated I probably could have achieved it, however a) it has been chucking it down for most of the summer and b) my summer hasn't exactly been filled with free weekends for me to live out my bucolic dream. We've either been away or had folk to visit on most weekends since Easter, and those times where we've been at home (e.g. this weekend just gone) have been wet. We did go to Millets (our local garden centre) yesterday and I persuaded Ali that the joint account really did need to accommodate the purchase of 2 chocolate cosmos plants, 2 pink Japanese anemones, 3 little perennial plants (a foxglove, a hellebore and an aquilegia) and a weigela shrub with lovely burgundy leaves. I can't wait to plant them all out but the rain has pissed all over that idea this weekend. We also have a squash or pumpkin (we don't know which) growing in a tub which held tulips earlier in the year, the result of our compost bin failing to break down a random seed somewhere and it suddenly germinating about a month or so ago. It's going nuts and spreading all over the lawn at the moment and I really hope we get some good fruits off it. We also have a few leeks donated by our green-fingered friends Cameron and Elaine; and a globe artichoke that's flowering after 2 years of dormancy. The next sunny weekend I will make the effort, take some photos, and post them up.
4. Related to the last post - keeping 50% of our weekends free for some 'just us' time. This is a tricky one as the reason we haven't managed this is because we've seen friends and family so much this summer, and done a lot of cool things. So that's good. On the other hand, our 2 weeks in Italy were so wonderful, when we spent a whole fortnight just having a good time in each other's company, that it's clear we should try and do more of it. Unfortunately holiday allowances and lack of cash mean we can't take a fortnight in Tuscany every 2 months. Oh well.
5. Books I should be reading/re-reading. I've got far too many interesting new books to read to bother about re-reading the bloody Iliad. What was I thinking?
6. Diet. A new one, this. It's partially come about because of my new job, but looking back over my weight since I graduated, slowly, inexorably (there's those cliches again) I have put on about 1 or 2 lbs a year since. So, like howsoonisnow, I am cutting out bread, cheese and mid-week drinking, and I'm using the online diet plan of my new employers. And it's working, admittedly slowly, but it is actually working. Amazing.
So that's my good intentions in a nutshell. Overall I think that it's a good mid-year review, though there is certainly room for improvement in some areas.
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